MAM
Dentsu Creative India appoints Ajeet Shukla as group executive creative director
Mumbai: Dentsu Creative India on Wednesday announced the appointment of Ajeet Shukla as group executive creative director. He will report to Taproot Dentsu and Isobar India chief creative officer Aalap Desai.
In his new role, Shukla will drive Dentsu Creative’s global proposition to transform brands and businesses through the power of ‘Modern Creativity’ in the western region of the country. His focus will be to breathe life into the best possible creative solutions that are strongly anchored in culture, innovation, and technology, said the agency in a statement.
Prior to this, Shukla was with Publicis India as executive creative director. In his professional journey so far, Shukla has worked with brands like IPL, ZEE, Disney+ Hotstar, TATA Salt, Ferrero Rocher, Heineken, Amstel, Skoda, Aegon Life, TATA AIG, HDFC MF, HDFC Bank, BPCL, Mak Lubricant, CHINGS, ZEE5, Dish TV, Emami Navratna, Ghadi, among others.
With more than 16 years of experience, Ajeet has won many national and international awards like Abbys, Kyoorius, Mirchi Kaan, Effies, Adfest, Promax Asia, to name a few. In addition to this, some of his notable works include IPL’s “Bulavaa aaya hai,” Aegon Life’s “Aegon toh tension gone,” Champions Tennis League’s “Tennis Ball,” Tata Salt’s “Namak ki baat,” Sony Six’s “Har koi six lagayega,” and ZEE5’s “Dekhte reh jaogey.”
Speaking on the appointment, Aalap Desai said, “Right now, Dentsu Creative is a wonderful work in progress. It is at this time when you need the right people to join in and add to it. Ajeet fits that profile on every count. His body of work is brilliant, and his attitude and love for business are contagious. I am glad to have him on board for the journey.”
Shukla added, “The bigger the challenge, the bigger the opportunity. And I am thrilled to take this opportunity in this role. It would really be amazing to work in such a great creative environment filled with the best of the creative minds in the industry. I really look forward to doing some great work here.”
Dentsu Creative India was recently declared the ‘Agency of The Year’ at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity 2022-a first-ever for India. It also lifted a Titanium for the country for its ‘Unfiltered History Tour (UHT)’ campaign in addition to bagging three Grand Prix—another first, two Gold Lions and three Silver Lions—making UHT the most awarded work not only from India but globally.
Brands
Google completes $32 billion Wiz deal to boost AI and cloud security
Wiz joins Google Cloud but keeps multi-cloud support across rival platforms
NEW YORK: Google has completed its $32 billion acquisition of cloud security company Wiz, marking the biggest deal in the tech giant’s history and signalling a major push to strengthen security in the era of artificial intelligence and multi-cloud computing.
The New York-headquartered cybersecurity firm will join Google Cloud while continuing to operate under the Wiz brand. Crucially, the company will maintain support for multiple cloud platforms, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud, reflecting the reality that most large organisations run their systems across several cloud providers.
Google said the acquisition is designed to help organisations build and scale applications more securely as businesses and governments increasingly move critical systems and data to the cloud. At the same time, the rapid adoption of generative AI has introduced new cybersecurity risks, with attackers also using AI to launch faster and more sophisticated attacks.
Wiz has built a reputation for simplifying cloud security. Its platform maps entire cloud environments, identifying vulnerabilities, potential attack paths and misconfigurations before they can be exploited. By connecting insights from code, cloud infrastructure and runtime environments, it allows security and engineering teams to detect and fix risks early in the development cycle.
Bringing Wiz into Google Cloud will create what the company describes as a unified security platform capable of detecting, preventing and responding to threats across cloud and AI environments. The combined offering will also integrate Google’s own security capabilities, including threat intelligence tools, security operations platforms and the cybersecurity expertise of Mandiant.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the move reflects the growing importance of security as more organisations rely on AI and cloud technologies. “Keeping people safe online has always been part of Google’s mission,” he said, adding that the partnership will help organisations innovate with greater confidence.
Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, said the goal is to make security an enabler rather than a roadblock for businesses building modern applications. He noted that the combined technologies will simplify the complex task of protecting hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
For Wiz, the acquisition opens the door to global scale while keeping its core philosophy intact. Co-founder and CEO Assaf Rappaport said the company remains committed to an open, multi-cloud approach and will continue supporting customers regardless of where their workloads run.
Over the past year, Wiz has expanded its platform to address emerging risks tied to AI applications, including tools that help organisations monitor AI usage, detect AI-specific vulnerabilities and secure AI workloads during runtime.
With Google’s infrastructure, artificial intelligence capabilities and security ecosystem now behind it, Wiz plans to accelerate development of its platform while continuing to serve enterprises, governments and start-ups operating across different cloud environments.
For Google Cloud, the acquisition adds a powerful piece to its security puzzle as competition intensifies among global cloud providers. For customers, it promises a future where building fast in the cloud does not have to come at the expense of staying secure.
